12 Aug 24. Finding a treatment for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy

Professor Dave Newby, Professor Marc Dweck,  Dr Lucy Kershaw and Professor Michelle Williams have successfully been awarded moniesfor commencing a study  looking at finding a treatment for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. 

As summarised on the project application:

"Stress heart syndrome' (called takotsubo cardiomyopathy and also known as broken heart syndrome) is a life threatening condition which presents like a heart attack. It is usually triggered by a sudden emotional or physical stress and predominantly affects middle aged women. One in ten people will die during the initial episode. In those who survive, the heart appears to spontaneously recover back to normal.  However, despite this, many people continue to have symptoms and they have a high rate of repeated episodes and twice the likelihood of dying compared to the general population. We have found that the heart muscle behaves different in patients with 'stress heart syndrome' and we want to test whether the heart muscle can be improved using drugs used to treat heart failure. If successful, this could lead to clinical trials of these drugs and provide the first ever treatment for this condition. This would be a major advance for these people with this devastating condition and help us address a major unmet clinical problem.

From using manganese enhanced magnetic resonance imaging, we have recently unmasked a profound and persistent disturbance in myocardial calcium handling in patients with takotsubo cardiomyopathy. This may underlie the pathophysiology of this condition. We here propose experimental medicine studies that will assess whether candidate heart failure medications can restore normal myocardial calcium handling in patients with either acute or prior takotsubo cardiomyopathy. We will explore the time course and persistence of these effects and correlate them with patient-centred outcomes of symptoms and exercise capacity. This has the potential to identify candidate therapies for testing in clinical trials so that we can find the first evidence-based treatment for takotsubo cardiomyopathy and improve outcomes for these patients. This represents a major unmet clinical need."

The project will run for approximately 36 months, commencing shortly in 2024. Congratulations to all involved!